City, San Mateo County
© McCormack's Guides
Zip Codes: 94080, 94083
Bay City
built in bowl bordered by hills and San Bruno Mountain. Within the bowl are
smaller hills. Many homes have views of Bay. Blue-collar to middle class
affluent. Crime low. Scores middling. One of the best commutes in the Bay Area
(but it has traffic problems.) Population 63,744. www.mccormacks.com
Key city
for biotech, about 50 firms, Genentech the largest. Many of its gleaming
buildings are located on a small hill near the Bay. Also down on the Bay, east
of Highway 101, shipping firms and several large hotels.
South San
Francisco, also known as South City, borders San Francisco International
Airport, a major job center, and is served by two freeways, a train station and
a BART (commute rail) station.
Click for regional or detailed map
Famous or
notorious for its large white “South San Francisco, The Industrial City”
blazoned across a hillside and visible from Highway 101. Letters are 60 feet
high and made of cement.
The new
South City is better symbolized by the Oyster Point Marina Business Park —
sleek, modern, futuristic, cool — than the dirty white lettering on the
hillside. www.mccormacks.com
The old
lettering, however, has reached almost cult status — so desperate, so
blatant, so tacky, so human. In 1996, a state commission voted to give it
historical protection.
In 2003,
the BART line was extended to San Francisco Airport and stations opened at
South San Francisco, San Bruno and Millbrae. The South City station is located
a few miles west of the waterfront and has encouraged housing construction in
its vicinity (Mission Boulevard near Grand Avenue). This neighborhood also has
a Costco.
Taxes from hotels and businesses fund
about half the city's budget. South San Francisco has over 45,000 jobs. This
translates into a short commute for many residents. www.mccormacks.com
Served by
South San Francisco Unified School District. School rankings from the 30th
to 80th percentile, a real mix reflecting the demographics of the
town, low-middle and upper middle. See Schools.
In 1997,
voters approved a $40 million bond to improve all schools in the district.
Three
Catholic schools. Skyline Community College located about three miles to the
south.
In the
1850s, as the Spanish land grants were broken up, a cattle baron purchased
1,500 acres at Point San Bruno. For the next 30 years, large herds were
pastured here before being driven to the San Francisco stockyards.
About
1890, the baron died and his land went on the market. At that time, the big
butchers — Swift, Armour, Cudahy, Morris — were looking for a spot
to set up their West Coast operations. They purchased the 1,500 acres, added 2,000
and went into business as the Western Meat Company. In similar ventures,
Augustus Swift had established and named South Omaha and South Chicago. And so
... South San Francisco. Absolutely no imagination! www.mccormacks.com
Western
Meat also set up a land company to build homes that workers could purchase and
to attract other industries to Point San Bruno. Within 10 years or so, the
cluster of homes jelled as a community and in 1908, the town was incorporated
as the City of South San Francisco. Four of the five members of the first city
council were employed by Western Meat.
In the
beginning, South City had Irish, French, Italian and Chinese neighborhoods.
Italian tradition is recalled annually in Italian-American games: bocce, track
and more wrapped up with a dinner-dance. In recent years, other ethnic groups,
have settled in South San Francisco.
In 1926,
the City of San Francisco purchased for a municipal airport 1,100 acres just
south of South City. Came World War II, the U.S military took over the airport,
pumped in millions worth of improvements and started the airport down the road
of what it is today: a gigantic and perpetual work in progress that underpins
the economy of the region, jobs by the tens of thousands. Stockyards closed in
1957.
South City started 1940 with 1,300
housing units. In that decade, it almost tripled its housing, adding about
2,900 units. In the 1950s, the city exploded, building about 5,800 units and in
the 1960s and 1970s, about 3,500 units each decade. In the 1980s, home
construction dropped to about 1,700 units and in 1990s, the South City built
about 1,400 units. In the last decade, the city increased its population by
6,000. Between 2000 and 2007, the city issued about 450 building permits, split
about 50-50 between single homes and apartments or condos.
In housing
styles, the city is easily described. The prewar housing can be found in and
adjoining the downtown, which straddles Grand Street. A little farther out, the
1950s homes show themselves, then the 1960s and 1970s housing. www.mccormacks.com
West of
Interstate 280, the Westborough neighborhood mixes townhouses, many of them
new, with single homes, circa 1960s to 1980s. Some of the best views (of Bay)
in South San Francisco.
For the
modern, Terrabay, master-planned development of townhouses, single homes and
11-story tower (112 condos) on the slopes of San Bruno Mountain. Also some
infilling along Chestnut Avenue and the units coming around the BART station.
In the hills, a few fairly new homes, two stories, three-car garage, small
lots.
Residential
units in 2008 totaled 20,826. Single homes accounted for 12,020 units,
single-family attached 2,551, apartments and condos 5,846, mobile homes 409.
Median age
of residents is 36. Children and teens under 18 make up 24 percent of town;
people over 55 years, 21 percent. Rounded leaning toward middle age.
Summing
up, housing from modest to mildly upscale, with a lot in the middle. Many of
the homes have been remodeled and improved. www.mccormacks.com
The
downtown has an intimate quality that planners and more Americans are starting
to appreciate. For decades, suburbs have been treating residential and business
as oil and water — never the twain shall mix.
There’s a
lot to be said for this approach. For one thing, it shelters kids playing on
the streets from the traffic going to and from stores. But it also takes away
some of the friendliness of our towns. The idea of an evening stroll to the
local restaurant or deli or stopping for a beer at the saloon and chatting with
friends or neighbors— in many countries this is common; in American
suburbs it’s rare.
South City
has this ambiance, especially in its along Grand Avenue, which the city has
played up with ornamental street lights, angled parking, brick cross walks,
shrubs and trees. The section has green grocers, delis, restaurants, coffee
shops (Starbucks and Peets) and a grand city hall with a library.
Occasional
complaints about airport noise but many people probably accept the noise as the
price of jobs. The feds and the airport have put up several million to
soundproof homes.
Foggy in
many neighborhoods. In July it’s not uncommon to see people bundled in hooded
sweatshirts. Coastal hills drop in elevation, allowing the fog to penetrate to
the Bay.
Three
homicides in 2005, one in 2004, two in 2003, one each from 2002 to 1999, zero
in 1998 and 1997, two in 1996, one in 1995, two in 1994 and 1993, one in 1992,
three in 1991, one in 1990, two in 1989, two in 1988, one in 1987, four in
1986, three in 1985. See Crime.
About 16
neighborhood parks. San Bruno Mountain state park on north side. Marina and waterfront
park. Trails. Typical kid and adult sports, many sponsored by city hall. Most
popular: baseball and soccer. Community pool. Community gym. Forty-Niner games
are 5 minutes up the road, Giants games in downtown San Francisco. Delights of
San Francisco close at hand. Golf course. If you want to swim in the Bay, lap
lanes have been set up off Oyster Point. Marina. Windsurfing.
City
throws an annual celebration, Day in the Park (outdoor fair, food booths,
dancing and singing, raffles and a giant cake.) www.mccormacks.com
Great
commute if you work in San Francisco or at the airport. BART station also at
Daly City and Colma. So-so commute if you have to slog to Silicon Valley but
there is an alternative: Caltrain, which runs commute trains to San Jose and
Silicon Valley and north to downtown San Francisco. Station in South San
Francisco.
Chamber of
commerce (650) 588-1911.
• Hip, hip
hooray for DNA Way! What South City named one of its streets. Cute?
• Local
man, to help his son with a school project, bought him two rabbits — male
and female. Two years later, 80 rabbits. The fellow built them a custom hutch
and took good care of them but didn’t know that rabbits could be neutered.
Ultimately the city caught on, seized the bunnies and put them up for adoption.
The man took three, all sterilized.
•
Genentech wants to add more buildings, one of which would include a child-care
center. City government is reviewing plans. Firm, which has about 7,700
employees, thinks that by 2015, it will have 15,000.
• Ferries
are making a slow comeback in the Bay Area. Oakland, Alameda, Vallejo and
several Marin cities run daily ferries to downtown San Francisco. In the works,
possibly by 2008, a ferry from Oyster Point in South City to downtown San Fran. www.mccormacks.com
• During
Prohibition, South City ran wide open. One of the largest illegal distilleries
was not only a member of the chamber of commerce, it was run by the chamber,
wrote the late Alan Hynding in his history of San Mateo, “From Frontier To
Suburb.”
• Trompe-l-oeil
decorates downtown building; made to look like it has a second story of “tenants”
— cat, pelican, etc. — looking out windows.
• A
distant gleam in the city’s eye, another Caltrain station in the downtown,
connected by bike trails to Genentech and the shore businesses.
• Many
South City residents shop in San Bruno, which has large supermarkets and malls
on the South City border along El Camino Real.
• In 2006,
South San Fran landed a grant for $970,000 to build a path and bikeway to the
BART station. www.mccormacks.com
• For
chocolate lovers, See’s Candies is headquartered here and many of its
chocolates are made in town.
City web
site: www.ci.ssf.ca.us
